Tales from the Esquire Bar 3

TALES FROM THE ESQUIRE BAR 3

This is a Greenville Story

Preamble Ramble: This idea came to me like most of them do. At night right before I went to sleep. This is a short story about a woman's journey into prostitution. These stories are meant to be character studies. How someone gets to a certain point in life. There are thousands of stories like these in a city. Hopefully I will be able to tell some of them.

The grammar police were out on full force on my last story. I did rush and didn't triple check it like I have been doing. But if you're going to site me for poor spelling and punctuation I need to see some ID or at least a badge.

I hope you enjoy this story.

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"Hey Cheryl what ya have, the usual?" Bob asked as I walked into the Esquire to take a break. "That works for me Bob."

I'm not on a lunch break, I'm on the stroll. Which means I'm a hooker. I sell my body for sex. Its what I do for a living. I mean who is. I don't know anyone that says, "Mommy I want to be a hooker when I grow up." Its something they fall into. When they have nothing left and no other choice. That's me I had nothing left and ended up working the street with no other choice. But my life wasn't always this bleak. No, I wasn't always a hooker. I was a regular person with a regular job living a regular life. So I'm sitting in the Esquire so I can get off my feet for a minute.

I take a swallow of my usual Paul Masson and Orange juice and think back 15 years. I was living in Cleveland, I was 21 and working at a car dealership in the office finalizing sales. I was young, pretty and smart. I had offers all the time for dates. I didn't accept them all. Especially from married men. I had a friend who did that once and got beat up by the wife. I didn't date guys from the job even though they asked all the time. The older guys were way bolder then the younger ones. They felt their money would persuade me to go out. It didn't.

I ended up meeting Donnie Hall at a local club one Saturday night. I was out with some friends when he asked me to dance. He was tall at 6 foot 2 and very well built. Long blond hair and piercing blue eyes. When they say he could have anyone they really meant he could have anyone. We danced several times. He bought me a couple of drinks while we talked and went back to his place. I thought it was going to be the usual club hook up. He takes me back to his place. We do the nasty and I go home never to hear from him again. It didn't work out that way. We were exclusive from that night on. Donnie was smart and funny. He was working at Jiffy Lube but I felt he could be doing better for himself. He had the looks and intelligence to be a salesman. I got him a job at the car dealership. No one knew we were dating. There weren't any rules about it but I didn't want the hassle.

Once Donnie got his feet under him he did great. He wasn't the top sales person but he was always near the top. And of course the more cars you sell the more money you make. So he was making great money. We had started to live together after 3 months of dating and things were going well. One thing about Cleveland is the weather. The summers are beautiful. The winters not so much. Its right on Lake Erie, Which means really bad winters. The car business dies in the winter. With less business meant less money. Donnie was getting frustrated. He was getting used to the big checks. Now he was making half of what he did during the summer. I was picking up more and more of the bills to cover his share.

We sat down one Sunday and talked about our future. We had already confessed our love for each other. We needed to decided what we wanted for the future. Donnie felt he was losing out staying in Cleveland. He wanted to find some place where he could make money 365 days a year. I had only lived in Cleveland. My whole family was here. Just like him. But the more I thought about the better I liked the idea. It wasn't like I would be moving by myself, I would be with the man I love.

We looked at three cities, Nashville, Charlotte and Orlando. We ruled out Orlando and even Florida as a whole because the weather. We didn't want to deal with Hurricanes and old people all the time. Nashville had a crime issue and the cost of living was rising. We looked at Charlotte. It was under a million people and still the largest city in North Carolina. People were flocking there and they would need new cars. Crime wasn't as bad as Nashville. Weather wasn't a big problem either. When doing some searching I came across Greenville which is 20 minutes away almost like Cleveland and Avon Lake where I grew up which made it a very easy commute. Also housing was very affordable. So Greenville it was.

We saved every penny we could for 2 months and moved that February. Dustin had applied to several dealerships in the city and got a job at Toyota of Greenville. I had several interviews set up for when I got there also at car dealerships. We found a nice 2 bedroom townhouse off North New Hope Rd. His commute was only 10 minutes with no highway travel. I ended up with a job at a Chrysler Dodge dealership which happened to be across the street from Dustin's job.

So how did I go from having such a great life with a wonderful man to being a hooker. I hit the trifecta of life. Over the next year Dustin slowly started to change. He was making big money. He was a fast talking northerner compared to the southern guys. With his gift of gab and good looks women flocked to him like chickens to corn. He started hanging out more and more. Than he would come home late drunk on the weekends. Than sometimes during the week. Some days he didn't come home at all. When he did he smelled of booze and sex. He wasn't paying his share of the bills. He ended up losing his job at the dealership. In his frustration he became abusive. It didn't matter that he got another job. He wasn't making the same money as the last job so he blamed me. First when he would hit me he would do it so it wouldn't leave marks. Eventually he didn't care. I had to call off from work several times because of a black eye or bad bruise. He broke my arm once when he threw me down the stairs. At first he would apologize whenever he did something like that. He promised not to do it anymore. Until he did it the next time.

I had no one I could turn too. I had some friends from the job but I was afraid to tell them what was happening. I'm sure they suspected something with my frequent absences and the change in the way I dressed to cover the marks and bruises. You don't wear long sleeve shirts during a Carolina summer.

With all of that that was going on I turned to drinking myself. Stupid I know but I had nothing else. It helped dull the pain I was dealing with. It didn't happen until 6 months after Dustin started beating me. I would drink from the time I got home until I passed out. It got to the point when Dustin beat me I didn't feel it any longer.

A year later I lost my job due to poor performance. Its hard to do a good job when you're either drunk or hung over. After messing up three deals I was let go. So here I was an alcoholic with an abusive boyfriend who was also screwing everyone and everything he could. He was barely paying the bills before and now with me not working he decided he wasn't going to support a drunk. Funny huh. So he moved out. That was the last time I saw him.

I was jobless with bills I couldn't afford. I tried to get myself together to find another job but I couldn't face the day without a drink. I resorted to selling Plasma. You're supposed to only do it twice a week. I was going to different facilities 4 or 5 times a week. I don't know what made me do it but I ended up dancing at the Men's Club of Charlotte. Yes, its a strip club. I was talking to a girl at one of the plasma centers and she told me about it. I was still in pretty good shape and hadn't gotten that alcoholic glow yet. You know people who drink to much have that reddish yew about them.

So there I was, 25 and dancing for men I would never have dated before. I started dancing during the day. Tips are very low at that time. You have to work your way up. And its dog eat dog in the stripper game. No one wants to the new girl to come in and take their clients and or tips. There were some serious fights in the back room between strippers. Knock down drag out fights. Not hair pulling "girly fights" but Tyson vs Douglas fights. I saw one girl get knocked out and not one person helped her. She laid there for almost 15 minutes before she came around. People walked around or over her. Most of these girls came from rough backgrounds. Dancing is all they had. I tried to stay out their way but some caught my holier than thou attitude. I didn't even realize I came off that way but I guess I did. Not even realizing that I was in the same boat they were. I never got into physical fights but did argue a couple of times.

In the stripper game you start during the day and work your way to nights and weekends. Friday and Saturday are the big money nights. It took 6 months before I had a weekend shift. They gave me a try out and I did pretty good. I was making about the same that I was at the dealership but only working 20 hours a week. I did the weekends for 2 years. I had doubled my income compared to the dealership job. At 28 I was at the older end of most top earners. Its a young girls game. I also learned about the VIP rooms. I would double my money again by hosting "private dances" in these rooms.

As you get older you move from top of the line clubs to lesser and lesser clubs. Eventually the kind you find near truck stops. Or you end up doing porn or hooking. I found myself at the Paper Doll Lounge. Definitely on the lower end. I finally broke down and started doing what the other girls were doing. There are no camera's in these rooms. The only rule is they can't hurt us. And they take that very seriously. One guy not only got kicked out but ended up in the hospital. It's basically don't ask don't tell from the management. They get their cut of any "transaction". So I started doing extra's. It started off with hand jobs. Then ass jobs and eventually blow jobs. I had my regulars as most girls do. I started meeting customers outside of the club. Never at my place, always at a motel close by. I became well known at the Rodeway Inn and Hideaway.

One day I left the motel after meeting a regular and was walking to the Esquire Bar down the road. A car pulled up and asked me if I was on the stroll. I didn't know what he was talking about at first. Then it came to me. He thought I was a hooker. I was offended at first. Then it hit me that I am in fact a hooker. I just hadn't been on the street. We agreed to a price and went back to the Rodeway Inn. That was my first trick. Believe it or not it happened again when I went to walk to the bar later that day. That was 3 tricks in one day including my regular. Nearly $150 for less than 90 minutes work. I did pretty good that day. I never made it to the bar.

I went back two days later and took a walk along the road. I got picked up 4 times. This was easier than dancing. Remember back then you could charge $50 for a blow job, $75 for a fuck $100 without a condom and $150 for anal. Crackheads have made it so that its hard to make money now a days. Guys think they can get a fuck for $25. Most encounters lasted no more than 20 minutes. These guys weren't great lovers. If they were they wouldn't be with a hooker.

It hasn't always been preaches and cream if being a hooker could be called that. I had some bad times. A crazy client who tried to strangle me once. I got beat up a couple of times. Several pimps tried to "recruit" me which I wasn't having. I got into a couple of fights with some other girls. At first I had the area pretty much to myself. Over time it became busier and there was more competition. Younger and bolder. These girls would be out here half naked with their asses hanging out. I never did that. Sure I could still pull it off but I dressed respectfully. It worked for me. Guys got off on it. It was like fucking someones wife. I ended up with about 15 to 20 regulars each week. I'm still on the stroll because you have to keep building clientele.

So here I am. A 38 year old prostitute sitting in the Esquire bar at 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon drinking. I would never have thought I would end up here. Back in Cleveland I had such big dreams and aspirations. Moving to Greenville was supposed to be the start of a new life with the man I loved. Only God knows where he is now. Probably fucking some married woman or in a bar just like this. I haven't thought about Donnie in years.

Now I spend my time either here at the Esquire drinking or on the stroll trying to make a living. I got the new life. Just not the one I wanted.

The End